Pointless interview questions - pgce

[mb123786]

So ive applied for a pgce and had an interview at a school. i taught a 20 minute lesson and then had a face to face formal interview with three judges including one of them being the head of english. my lesson went perfectly well and was highly praised. bare in mind the head of english didnt observe my lesson. she only came in for the face to face. each interviewer took their turns to ask questions. when it came to the head of english, i found that she asked really stupid questions personally.

just a quick message - i didnt get the job but there are some things which i thought were very unfair and wanted to find out whether these are normal questions to expect at a teaching interview

I applied for the pgce secondary english role. one of her questions were what do you know about the national curriculum? which i was slightly thrown off by however i answered with what i thought was correct

she mentioned this in the feedback and had said that if someone doesnt know the national curriculum how will they teach english. i personally thought the whole point of a pgce is to help you train to become a teacher. if i already knew everything about the training programme i wouldnt have applied for it in the first place

another question which i found really silly was when she asked name one good thing you like about english and one bad thing about english. the good thing was easy to mention however the bad had threw me off completely. i didnt understand why you would ask someone what they dont like about english if clearly ive applied to teach it, i must surely have a passion for it. i feel as if the question were to be worded better as in 'what are you weaknesses as person etc' that would be more sensible.

I felt as if she was out to get me through the whole interview process. she stared right into my soul and was constantly yawning. after having the interview i spoke to a few of my friends who are currently already on the pgce programme

they told me to stay away from the school and in particular the woman as she has declined many people and does the same thing every time she interviews someone

if any teachers could give me some advice would highly appreciate

[Walkthedinosauuuuur]

It's still £15,000!

[Leithwalk]

With the new Ofsted framework a question about the National Curriculum is also to find out about your recent knowledge as well as understanding of progression through the subject.

I'd be more worried about your attitude and lack of self evaluation tbh.

[GoldenCrunchMunch]

I assumed that 'bare in mind' was some trick of imagining the interviewers naked to calm your nerves?

[Cat0115]

Perfectly reasonable questions.
The NC question is current due to Ofsted asking schools if their curriculum is NC Compliant. There are so many Non - specialist inspectors that the NC is the only raft they have to cling to. I would expect a candidate to be able to demonstrate awareness of it and to be able to articulate thoughts about potential strengths or weaknesses in your own knowledge. The advice from your friends is nonsense.
It sounds like this HoD has standards and expects a certain calibre of candidate. The children deserve dedicated and professional teachers not barely literate huffers. This may sound harsh, but taking feedback on the chin will be a regular occurrence in your 2 year training course. The NQT year can be as tough as the PGCE. You are learning on live students who don't get a second chance at their education so we need the very best.